Activists moving into Milk's old shop

CITY INSIDER

Levi Gold, a French Bulldog soaks up the sun in the middle of Valencia Street while the street was closed for the public to have fun, Sunday June 7, 2009 in San Francisco, Calif. This was the first time that Sunday Streets hit the Mission District.

Photo: Lacy Atkins, The Chronicle

The building that once housed Harvey Milk's famous Castro Camera shop will have a new tenant - the Human Rights Campaign, a national gay rights organization.

The organization currently has a local office at Castro and 19th streets. That will close and the new office will open in the old camera shop - which is just down the block - early next year, said Fred Sainz, spokesman for the campaign.

The office's store will offer items emblazoned with words and images of Milk, he said.

Milk operated the camera shop from 1972 until his assassination in 1978. During that time, the shop served as a political center for San Francisco's growing gay community.

"It is Harvey Milk's vision of hope that continues to inspire the work that we do at the Human Rights Campaign," said Joe Solmonese, the campaign's president, in a statement. Steve Adams, president of the Merchants of Upper Market and Castro, said he thought the move was a natural fit for a space with such history, especially one that is currently vacant.

"Let's face it, before that it was a skin care store and a furniture store before that," he said. "This makes way more sense."

- Will Kane

Let there be light: It was the biggest municipal solar power project when it was approved in May 2009.

That won't be the case for long, even as Mayor Gavin Newsomprepares to throw the proverbial switch today on the Sunset Reservoir solar power project.

Of course, that was part of the intent behind the nearly 24,000 solar panels clustered on the roof of the reservoir at 24th Avenue and Ortega Street - setting a tone for the state and beyond.

And Newsom intends to raise the bar today, announcing an aggressive goal of getting the entire city powered by greenhouse-gas-free energy in 10 years, including wind, hydro and solar power.

"The mayor wants to push the envelope," said his spokesman, Tony Winnicker. "If we don't aim high and push for the limits of what's possible, then we'll never know if we can get there."

It's a laudable idea, but Newsom will be sworn in as lieutenant governor in early January. So he's creating a task force and has secured a $250,000 grant from the Sidney Frank Foundation to develop a plan over the next year on how to reach the emissions-free energy goal.

Certainly the Sunset Reservoir Solar Project is a feather in the mayor's green cap as he heads to Sacramento.

There can be a price for being first, though.

Under the Sunset deal, Recurrent Energy built the photovoltaic plant and the city committed to buying power from the company for 25 years at a cost of at least $51 million and up to $60.2 million. The city has a buyout option at year seven for $32.4 million or fair market value, whichever is greater, and another buyout option at year 15.

Some supervisors expressed concern the city was locking itself into a buying power at a set rate even though market prices would fall as more solar plants came online.

- John Coté

Expiration date: That I-hit-the-jackpot moment of joy that drivers feel when they pull up to a broken meter in San Francisco looks like it's about to be dulled, as city officials move to limit the amount of free parking to an hour before the meter minders can issue a citation.

And those fines aren't cheap. Parking at an expired meter costs either $55 or $65, depending on the neighborhood.

"Establishing a one-hour maximum time limit for parking at broken/inoperable meters will provide a disincentive to vandalizing meters to be able to park at no cost for long time periods," Municipal Transportation Agency staff wrote in a report to the agency's governing board, which is scheduled to consider the new policy today.

The one-hour limit, the report added, "will provide a simple uniform rule to communicate to customers and will be easier and more efficient for ... parking control officers to enforce." If the proposal is approved by the transportation board, it will head to the Board of Supervisors for consideration.